Irish developers Joe O'Reilly and Bernard Costelloe sold a building leased to Louis Vuitton and women's retailer LK Bennett in the City of London financial district for £17.5m (€20.3m).

Limedew Ltd agreed to buy 4-6 Royal Exchange Buildings in a deal that includes five floors of offices above the two shops, according to a filing with the UK Land Registry. Tenants include financial adviser Helvea Ltd.

The Royal Exchange buildings are near the Bank of England, the Swiss Reinsurance Building known as the Gherkin and the Royal Exchange mall, which is owned by private clients of state-owned Anglo Irish Bank, now called Irish Bank Resolution Corp.

Irish property investors are selling central London real estate to help overcome the collapse of the domestic property market.

The capital value of Irish commercial property fell 64.2pc in the four years to September, according to a report by Jones Lang LaSalle.

Irish investors sold €858m of central London property in the first half of 2011, compared with €843m in all of 2010, according to CBRE Group Inc. (Bloomberg)